Phyllis Schlafly Says Pay Gap Protects Marriage

Phyllis Schlafly, best known for her decades of professionally telling other women not to work, is back with a Christian Post op-ed published on Tuesday. In it, the conservative commentator has a novel warning: If we don’t solve this little problem of women having the audacity to ask for equal pay, marriage as we know it will be over.
“While women prefer to have a higher-earning partner, men generally prefer to be the higher-earning partner in a relationship,” she wrote.

“This simple but profound difference between the sexes has powerful consequences for the so-called pay gap. Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate.” [Christian Post]

Women have no business even asking for equal pay, Schlafly adds, since they “work fewer hours” and “spend fewer years as full-time workers outside the home, avoid jobs that require overtime, and choose jobs with flexibility to take time off for personal reasons.” On top of that, she suggests, women also refuse to work at a location that doesn’t double as a five-star resort:

“Women place a much higher value on pleasant working conditions: a clean, comfortable, air-conditioned office with congenial co-workers. Men, on the other hand, are more willing to endure unpleasant working conditions to earn higher pay, doing dirty, dangerous outside work.” [Christian Post]

Schlafly ends her harangue by reminding women that it’s important to put a man’s needs first: “The best way to improve economic prospects for women is to improve job prospects for the men in their lives, even if that means increasing the so-called pay gap.” That’s the way life is lived in Phyllis Schlafly’s world, where every day is 1952.